The Jazz Bee

Discover Music

Denny Zeitlin: Stairway To The Stars

A trio can be a powerful thing. In the right measure, all three musicians are exposed just enough, and get just as much support as they need to take wing into memory.

In pianist Denny Zeitlin’s case, the trio is the touchstone for two decades of exceptional work. Back in 1996, Japan’s Venus Records invited him to assemble a trio to record the CD As Long As There’s Music, and he recruited bassist Buster Williams and Al Foster on drums.

In 2001, a young Matt Wilson stepped in for Foster on the skins, and he has anchored this trio ever since.

Zeitlin’s latest Sunnyside release, Stairway To The Stars, captures a magical performance by the 2001 trio close to its inception, froma live performane at The Jazz Bakery in Culver City, California in November of that year.

Standards take the fore on the disc, but are anything but “standard” here, starting with Harry Warren’s “There Will Never Be Another You,” followed by familiar classics by Gene de Paul, Jimmy Van Heusen and Richard Rodgers.

To mix things up, we have Sonny Rollins’ “Oleo” and Wayne Shorter’s “Deluge,” and Zetlin’s original “Out For A Stroll.”

Throughout, the disc is testament to the rare ability of these musicians, and evidence that even great artists sound best in the right company.

-- Tim Wilkins, WBGO digital content producer

The audio for this Radar is no longer available. To preview and purchase, visit Amazon and iTunes.

Tue, June 4, 2013

Mon, May 20, 2013

Terence Blanchard returns to Blue Note Records with the vector that is his working band. Special guests Ravi Coltrane, Lionel Loueke and Ron Carter join the force field. Hear "Magnetic" - new music on WBGO RADAR.

Mon, April 22, 2013

Welcome to a new initiative at WBGO.ORG we call RADAR. In the future, you will be able to visit this page and hear select recordings before they are officially released to the public. Normally, these will be commercially available recordings with links to purchase. But for starters, we are launching RADAR with an authorized bootleg from pianist Aaron Parks.